Monday, August 6, 2012

For John Kolodij, a Boston-based artist who records under the name High Aura'd, drone is "just a catch-all descriptor." But his new LP Sanguine Futures exemplifies the most classic sense of the term, offering limitless sonic atmospheres that only patiently held tones can create. Perhaps paradoxically, Kolodij's devotion to those tones opens his music up to many textures and moods. Parts follow song-like paths, while others overwhelm with a near-infinite density.
"I don't feel any limitations apply, but the challenge is to be honest to myself and to write pieces that are there for everyone," he explains. In the process, he manages to make bright beams of drone and dark caverns of echo both feel inviting. "I try to get into a place of deep listening-- an immersive, glamoured state where sound is suggestive, even if overblown and loud," he continues. "Long tones help lay a foundation, but the details, the layers, are what attract me-- overtones and decay."

Kolodij created Sanguine Futures solely with effects pedals, undoubtedly adding to the music's earthy, non-mechanical feel. Each track spreads and deepens with the inevitable pace of a rolling cloud or a curling wave. In forming these expansive pieces, Kolodij got help from John Twells, a veteran drone creator (as Xela) and drone supporter (as head of the Type label). "[He] and I went deeper, challenging each other, pushing each other and having fun," Kolodij recalls. "I wanted Sanguine Futures to be more distilled, and clarified, and dense….heavy enough to float. I was thinking glacially, and dreaming of tectonic grind."
for the full report: HEREThe Liminal

It’s becomingly increasingly difficult to write in any meaningful way about ambient releases, such is both the proliferation of music and by extension, the sheer amount of expended digital text. It’s not an exaggeration to say that some releases have as many purple reviews as there are physical copies available. All of which means, when a record of exceptional quality does arrive you find yourself reaching for higher superlatives or more abstruse adjectives to ecstatically describe the sonic phenomena as they unfold. What this situation does do is force you back to essentials: what, precisely, makes for a good ambient recording? And the answers are fairly simple: appreciation of atmosphere, tone, duration and architecture. And safe to say, High Aura’d (the recording alias of John Kolodij) has absolute mastery of all of these facets. Broadly put Sanguine Futures is elemental ambient music. Yet there is something more than just pretty evocation at work here: Kolodij has a granular approach to his compositions meaning each strata, each seam is carefully crafted, to the point where you can almost feel the bedrock and grasp at the clouds of vapour – these are compositions that invite a kind of habitation. On a track such as ‘Sleep Like the Dead’ there is a geological heft to the outer layers of the drone, and the heartbeat, when it comes, is bulbous and warm. ‘La Chasse-galerie’, is suitably wild, like its subject matter: a wild hunt, roaring high above the trees, peaking in a glorious crescendo, redolent of Yellow Swans at their most ecstatic. Thinking of other antecdents, I keep coming back to the Eno of On Land especially on the long eerie swamp-song of ‘Mercy Brown’ which has, at its heart, the story of an exhumation of a 2-month old corpse, a corpse whose heart still contained blood… Sanguine Futures is full of these kinds of layered readings, readings that double and intensify the already dense sonic material. Stunning stuff. (MP)

Sanguine Futures is a Rorchach test of an album, an inkblot of sound from which different ears will intuit different tales. It may be a winter album edging toward the spring, a clouded mind coming into focus, a blurred photo becoming distinct. Some have heard darkness in its grooves, others light, others a spectrum. Even the cover illustration, which looks like geography, may be something else entirely. While sanguine typically means “cheerfully optimistic”, it can also mean ruddy – blood-toned and foreboding, like the video for “River Runs Like Jewels”. Seldom has the tone of an album rested so much in the ear of the beholder.

This is certainly not an album to play in the car. After a deceivingly light beginning filled with the sounds of a gentle brook, a sub-bass develops like a descending plane. Drivers may be fooled into pulling over instead of pressing Pause or Eject. A bitter wind blows through the middle of the track, accompanied by avalanche roars and the tolling of bells – a sound which will become more important as the album develops. The effect is claustrophobic. And yet to stop here would be to miss the importance of the album’s trajectory, to misidentify its motives, to assume rather than to name. A journey is taking place: torturous and slow, but a journey nevertheless. Every creak and crack is a pitfall along the way to an uncertain end.

As an art form, the drone is often mistaken as a solid sound, when it is more likely to be a sound in motion. Each hum is joined here by another like travelers accompanied by Sherpas. A maelstrom continues to gather in “The Northern Sky, Ablaze”, balanced by chimes and squeaks: earthbound sounds that tether the listener to the realm of the earth while leading them toward the transcendent state of travelers and monks. As the edges of the tracks bond together like snow crystals, it becomes apparent that the album is best heard as a suite. Only the diamond crackle between Side A and Side B separates the sound from the silence.

The loudest sounds are saved for the finale of “Sleep Like the Dead”: wave upon wave of distortion, drowning the electric guitar. Is this an awakening or a threat? Perhaps the interpretation is best left undefined. These minutes mark the album’s dangerous summit, the high, exposed peak from which one may gain either perspective or death. Radio interference implies that a message is trying to get through, but it is washed away in the static.

Just when all seems lost and indistinct, a melody emerges through the ether like the windborne sound of a distant choir. The skies begin to clear. Crickets begin to chirp. Children play in the distance. On “Methodist Bells”, a piano. Is sanity in sight? Has the traveler returned? Again, the interpretation is up to the listener. On the one hand, these lighter sounds imply return and recovery. Yet on the other, when one listens closely, one begins to notice that the children are not live, but looped – which leads to a more sinister suspicion, that this perceived freedom is only the suspension of one’s awareness of confines. The true answer is buried somewhere in the sonic ink. (Richard Allen)

This new record from High Aura'd is our first exposure to this one man band's gorgeous understated minimal dronescapes, which we discovered via the man himself, who is in fact a long time aQ customer, and who we're proud to say, makes some seriously breathtaking music. Two epic side long sprawls, both born from near silence, a slow building A side that emerges as a deep rumbling and lush layered shimmer, a blurred ambience that drifts in soft focus billows, buried abstract melodies hover over slow shifting textures, all flecked with buzz and whir and distant streaks of sound, a serious slab of deep listening or which active listening is well rewarded, with a sound that is super active below the surface, the keen eared will hear strange voices, and mysterious melodies, and all manner of evidence regarding some secret sound world within High Aura'd's already gorgeously obfuscated music. The A side blossoms into a hiss drenched slo-mo creep, gradually fading out in a cloud of chiming bells and buried rhythms, the sound melancholy and sweetly sorrowful.
The flipside opens with some seriously Koner like low end minimalism, a cavernous drift much like that which opened the record, again building gradually to swath of black buzz crunch, a grinding landscape of hum and thrum and muted howl which quickly collapses into a soft cacophony of what sounds like orchestral samples, burred and smeared into an epic blissed out dreamlike coda before slipping back into the shadows, and a more wistful, hushed final passage.

I,joined by John Twells will be playing with Sutekh Hexen Sept.2nd, 3rd, and 4th

Monday, July 23, 2012

Pitchfork
Both in its longer form on Sanguine Features, the excellent LP from Boston sound stretcher High Aura'd, and on this slightly trimmed excerpt, "Sleep Like the Dead" creeps forward, with twinkling bells, battered tones, and the trumpet of Greg Kelley rising slowly toward an unseen crest. The implied mix of beauty laced with brutality and of brittle tones softened just enough to seem pretty is the chief trick of this track, which finds and exploits several shapes of ambiguity. Though a big beat throbs just beneath the surface, the piece somehow seems arrhythmic, the sheets of tone cutting against that clip with serrated teeth. Moreover, the sprawl suggests a tumble into noisy oblivion or an ascent into glorious crescendo. Instead, "Sleep Like the Dead" just sits in the center, glowing and growling and, eventually, going away.

You may listen to an exclusive excerpt of "Sleep Like The Dead' there...
more

coming from the Out Door soon.......

feel free to contact me to obtain a copy of Sanguine futures..they are moving...

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Grand show tonight with old friends, Kevin Micka ANIMAL HOSPITAL and the duo of
Reuben Son & Patrick Emm ESS & EMM for the Sanguine Futures record release
John Twells & Greg Kelley will join me.

Sanguine Futures now available over seas:Boomkat
Petrifying cinematic dronescapes from John Kolodij's High Aura'd, with valuable mastering and arrangement assistance from John P Twells (aka Type Records boss, Xela). Bostonian Kolodij's ushered out a coupla CDrs and cassettes for Reverb Worship and Stunned Records in the last few years. But 'Sanguine Futures' is set to be his calling card for the foreseeable. Drawing upon darkest black spirits, he invokes a disconcertingly close and imminent atmospheric menace drawing parallels with Scelsi and Penderecki, or even the arctic concrete of Thomas Köner, but all with the intangible quality of a fevered daymare you've just woken from, yet struggle vainly to remember. That's not to say it's forgettable, more that it's really captured that liminal, barely-conscious quality to a potent degree; drifting between rusted, autumnal tones and weathered textures with uncommon ghostly grace, broodingly resigned to infinitely creak in the ether. "There's deep, rusty veins running to the heart of Sanguine Futures, pumping a dark crimson fluid, driving the machine to keep humming. There's a clicking film projector casting images onto a sheet of ice. We feel it, it's thrust into the very energy that motivates us; a feeling of love, of life, of solace, of hope and pain and fear and joy and sorrow. This is a span of sounds and tones and textures, weaved together as a lifeforce. An album this isn't, an entire affair, spanning our first to dying breaths. Heavy, spacious, frightening, and welcoming; all at once."

Foxy Digitalis
This excellent album is defined by sections of warm guitar drones and wide-scope bells placed over rushing sounds of nature – wind, rain, creaking wood, etc.; these aspects seamlessly kaleidoscope through six movements of deeply fluctuating sound, via a series of drones that subtly vary pitch, reminiscent in their feel to the drone tape style circa 2006-2008, prior to the shift to a predominant use of synthesizers within the form.

The synthesis of style and content is extremely well done here. Along with Attenuated’s “Night of Sense,” Tidal and Rambutan’s split LP, and Ernesto Diaz-Infante’s “Civilian Life,” this album shows that 2012 is already developing as a strong period for strikingly heavy drone releases whose creators share a common ability to bring the listener into their artistic process.

The subject matter of the work seems to be one of psychedelia without sentimentality: titles like “The Northern Sky Ablaze” and “River Runs like Jewels” convey mental images of bright and overwhelming color, while titles like “Sleep Like the Dead” and “Methodist Bells” convey an American-Gothic feel, or at least a version of America that was once defined by a haunted, superstitious people and landscape.

The mental associations brought to bear by the album’s song titles are fully borne out by the music; the form used is a continuous, echoing Monument Valley of negative-charged emotion and crushingly heavy aural space that transitions at times into sylvan and peaceful emotional shades. This last quality is particularly profound, in that it conveys serious emotion without falling into the trap of mawkishness.

Music that is written so that it brings the listener into the world of its compositional structure is very important, and this album accomplishes that feat; moreover, it adds to a long list of experimental releases of the last number of years which demonstrate artistic integrity and an absolute faith in its style. It’s fortunate that the internet has provided access to music such as this, which is cut off from many of the other avenues of the music business.

This last point I think is important: as so called “indie-rock” has turned more and more in the last ten years into either music used to sell cars and deodorant for huge advertising companies, having the musical integrity, appropriately enough, of a sophomoric Wieden+Kennedy commercial – or worse, is seen as an alternative to law or business school for arrogant young men and women who view art as just another vehicle to further their careers, we are fortunate that so many artists are operating on their own for the sake of the music itself.

It’s a shame, however, that genuine artists such as this do not have the amount of attention or financial backing as charlatans such as the abominable Wavves or YACHT, or the utterly contemptible Salem, or artists who wear the “experimental” tag like a fashionable accessory – people such as Grimes, who have talent for songwriting but who put forward such a high level of insincerity that it reads to their audience as sincerity. Then again perhaps that is for the better.

Anti-Gravity Bunny
It seems like maybe this is High Aura’d's (thee John Kolodij) big one. He recruited the mighty Greg Kelley for his trumpet powers, got Simon Fowler to create a masterpiece for the artwork, had John Twells (Type, Xela, etc) produce & mix it, and dipped it in lead with James Plotkin’s mastering. Not to mention that this is his first slab of vinyl, and it’s on Bathetic, and it’s already been praised to the high heavens by everyone including the fucking Boston Globe. But today is its official release, and I can pretty much guarantee Sanguine Futures will end up somewhere on my year end drone list, so this is my authorized stamp of approval that this record is the fucking BEST.

It seems like with each release Kolodij’s gotten darker & darker, which is A+ in my book, and this one is by far the blackest he’s gone. With the exception of a singular jaw dropping moment of euphoria (and trust me, it’s a special fucking moment), this is mostly all ominous rumble, running the line of doom and black ambient. He’s been pretty metaphoric with the water theme in the past, but this is overt and unmistakable, starting the album off with watery samples. This whole thing is like a foggy midnight journey through the middle of the ocean, with distant muffled canons fighting off some ancient sea beast, mythical & literal sirens wailing, calling with sweetness & alarm, chimes and clatter rattling in the still darkness, the crazy dude on top of the mast playing his song of mourning, the much saner dude in the hull with his heartache piano, everything sad and black, but not quite devoid of hope. Seriously pushing all of my drone buttons right now, ranking in the very top of records this year and likely for years to come. This is Kolodij at the top of his fucking game. Dude is already unstoppable and this is only his first vinyl. If you haven’t been keeping an eye on him yet, now’s the fucking time.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Sanguine Futures is now available for pro-order at Bathetic Records
I highly recommend the bundle option with the great William Cody Watson record,
Bill Murray, it'll disappear on July 10th, the official release date for SF----
Thanks to everyone involved for the faith and support.
On Sanguine Futures, Kolodij was aided in arranging by Type Records' John Twells, who also produced and mixed the record at Seventh Door Studios in Massachusetts. Trumpet by the renown Greg Kelley. James Plotkin mastered. Simon Fowler did the beautiful artwork. John Hency, William Cody Watson and Omar Mashaal forever.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Video Premiere over at FOXY DIGITALIS
for the Omar Mashaal composed piece-
"River Runs Like Jewels"
Boston’s High Aura’d (aka John Kolodij) has been making quite the impression over the last few years on a series of exquisite short-run tapes and CDRs. And honestly, even though said releases were all very good and quite lovely in their own right, they didn’t really prepare me for the heavy, stunning mass that is Kolodij’s first LP, Sanguine Futures. Joined by Type Records boss, John Twells (who helped with arrangements and mastering), High Aura’d reaches a new cosmic plane. Solemn drones bend from the sky, echoing like endless prayers being sent to a God that never existed. It is music that aches and breathes (something particularly true for the song featured in this fantastic video by Omar Mashaal). Layers are stretched like skin over muscle, painting a pretty facade for the distressed horror that’s buried underneath. This is living, folks, and there’s nothing left to do but let it wash over you and take you away in its blackened currents.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Blackened Blissout from the Big Band show: HERE
Thanks and praise to John Twells and Greg Kelley
I have Mooncusser and Third Life tapes available: HERE
Production is rolling of the Bathetic 12" will post more as it's closer-late June/July

Thursday, March 1, 2012

An early version of a song, 'Methodist Bells' is on a grand mixtapefor CVLT NATIONcheck the upcoming Bathetic Records release for the big picturecurated by Locrian's Andre Foisy-more from the two of us later this year as well....

Friday, February 3, 2012

"The latest missive from High aura'd - a meditation on stasis and desire-recorded during several severe thunderstorms, conjuring harrowing campfire dreams of hand written tombstones and haunted musicboxesMooncusser-drives to extend a state of awe presented by Nature and revered by few. "http://losdiscosenfantasmes.blogspot.com/2012/02/high-aurad-mooncusser.html?spref=tw

JS Truchy is a saint. please do what you can to deplete him of his stock of the entire batch

ALSO, work is going rather splendidly on the Bathetic full length...shooting for a May release... harrowing.Lots of amazing stuff this year--support is very much appreciated!